Great Old Gaming Gems – Star Fox

Originally called Starwing in Europe with a sequel called Lylat Wars and a recreation of it called Star Fox 64, it’s a game which has become immensely popular. Star Fox was a game I actually only picked up second hand when I was 24 and I loved it! I’m really not a big fan of most games where you’re flying around shooting things unless it’s a vertical or horizontal scroller. Star Fox though was a game that grabbed me. Maybe it was the ‘futuristic’ polygons, the fun little comments your team mates gave or the fun that could be had trying to kill that annoying little Toad Slippy.

Star Fox was probably the most advanced game of its type at the time, some games were more into realism and that produced games like F22 Interceptor, others went more for plot so games like Desert Strike were made (sorry for all the comparisons to megadrive/genesis games, I was a Sega supporter in my youth) but Star Fox not only attempted to be futuristic in terms of the style, the plot etc… but it also really pushed the SNES to its limits. I think when comparing it to its contemporaries on other consoles, the graphics for Star Fox were off the scale, not to mention it was a damn fun game to play.

I think the SNES control pads were perfect for this game, it didn’t have the insane level of complexity required for games like X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter (I gave up after playing for 10 minutes because I couldn’t get the hang of the controls, in my defence I was still in school) nor did it have the one button does everything control system that some of the more basic systems had, it also had a wonderful feature involving different pathways. Instead of just setting a difficulty of easy, medium or hard you got to choose which route you took to try and fly through even with some hidden levels here and there.

Star Fox though was a hell of a lot of fun to play and I know I’ll be coming back to this for years to come.